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A qist plan on something that loses value fast
A phone loses value while the customer pays for it. Compare what he still owes with what the item would fetch back today, and build the qist plan on that.
Same customer, same shop: two very different plans
A phone, a laptop, a second-hand motorcycle: the customer pays over months, and the thing loses value every one of those months. Two lines matter. What he still owes you, and what the item would fetch if it came back today. Build the plan so the owed line drops under the value line early.
The item decides the plan, not the customer
A steel almirah you sold to Anwar is worth almost the same one year later. A phone you sold him the same afternoon is worth far less. Same shop, same handshake, and the two plans should not look alike. The reason has nothing to do with trust.
Most qist trouble on fast-dropping goods comes from copying a furniture plan onto electronics: twelve months, a small first payment, equal instalments. Furniture forgives a long plan. A phone does not.
So before you write a single date, ask one question about the item, not about the man. If this came back to my counter after six months, what would I really get for it? That answer sets the down payment, the length of the plan and the size of the early payments. If you know the shape of a qist plan that stays fair, this is the extra step for goods that shrink.
Two lines running down the same months
Picture two lines on one page, from the day the item leaves your shop to the day the plan closes. The first is what he still owes you: it starts at the amount left after the down payment and steps down every time a payment lands.
The second is what the item is worth. Not what you sold it for: what you would really get for it, second-hand, on your own counter, that day. It slides from the moment the thing leaves the shop, and on electronics it falls off a cliff in the first weeks.
While the owed line sits above the value line, a broken plan costs you money. The item comes back and it does not cover the balance. You are short, and you still have to ask him for the difference.
Once it drops under the value line, a broken plan costs you time only. Slow, annoying, an argument maybe, but the goods in your hand cover the number in your khata.
Every plan has a month where the two lines cross. That month is the number the whole plan should have been built around, and almost nobody works it out.
What he still owes, beside what the phone fetches
Example numbers for one made-up plan, not a claim about any real shop or any real phone. Work out your own from your own bazaar.
Put real numbers on one phone
Say a phone sells at Rs 60,000 cash. Your one-time markup of 10 percent, Rs 6,000, is decided the moment the plan is made and frozen there for good, so the qist price is Rs 66,000. He puts Rs 12,000 down and pays the remaining Rs 54,000 over ten months, Rs 5,400 a month.
Now lay the value line beside it. The day that phone is opened it stops being new stock. Say it fetches Rs 48,000 on your counter in the first week, Rs 45,000 after a month, about Rs 41,000 after three, Rs 35,000 after six:
- Day one: he owes Rs 54,000, the phone fetches Rs 48,000. Rs 6,000 short.
- After one payment: he owes Rs 48,600, the phone fetches Rs 45,000. Rs 3,600 short.
- After two: he owes Rs 43,200, the phone fetches about Rs 43,000. Level.
- After three: he owes Rs 37,800, the phone fetches Rs 41,000. Covered by Rs 3,200.
The crossing month is three. For the first three months of a ten-month plan this phone owes you more than it is worth; for the other seven it does not. All of your risk lives at the front of the plan, which is the opposite of what most shopkeepers feel.
Suppose: a Rs 60,000 phone on a ten-month plan
An example plan, not real shop data. The markup is added once here and never again, and nothing is ever added on top for a payment that comes late.
Nadeem sells phones on a market road. At about twenty past twelve on a Wednesday, Rizwan walked in and said his job had gone. He had paid two payments. Nadeem took the phone back and shelved it at Rs 39,000, because the box was lost and the back was scratched. Rizwan still owed Rs 43,200, so Nadeem was Rs 4,200 short on a sale he thought was safe.
After the sixth payment he would have taken back a phone worth Rs 35,000 against Rs 21,600 owed, and been well ahead. Same man, same honesty, different month.
Make the lines cross sooner
Everything comes down to one sentence: get the owed line under the value line as early as you can. Three moves do it, and none is about trusting the customer less.
Take a bigger first payment. The faster a thing loses value, the more of it he pays for on day one. That is the whole rule. Rs 12,000 down leaves you exposed for three months. Say he puts Rs 21,600 down instead, on a 6 percent markup, so the qist price is Rs 63,600. Now he owes Rs 42,000 against a phone worth Rs 48,000, and the lines never cross at all.
Shorten the plan. Ten months is a long wait on something that halves. Six payments of Rs 7,000 clear the same Rs 42,000 and keep the owed line falling faster than the value line all the way down. A short plan also finishes. Long plans die of ordinary life: a job changes, a family moves town.
Front-load the payments. Nobody says the instalments must be equal. On the original ten-month plan, four payments of Rs 9,000 followed by six of Rs 3,000 collect exactly the same Rs 54,000. But the owed line now falls Rs 9,000 a month at the start, precisely when the value line drops fastest. It is level in month one and safe from month two. You moved the crossing month from three to one without asking for a rupee more.
The same phone, rebuilt: Rs 21,600 down and six payments
- Day 1Down payment. He owes Rs 42,000, the phone fetches Rs 48,000Rs 21,600Paid
- Month 1Owes Rs 35,000, the phone fetches Rs 45,000Rs 7,000Paid
- Month 2Owes Rs 28,000, the phone fetches Rs 43,000Rs 7,000Paid
- Month 3Owes Rs 21,000, the phone fetches Rs 41,000Rs 7,000Due
- Month 4Owes Rs 14,000, the phone fetches Rs 39,000Rs 7,000Due
- Month 5Owes Rs 7,000, the phone fetches Rs 37,000Rs 7,000Due
- Month 6Last payment and the plan closesRs 7,000Due
Customers often take the front-loaded version happily, because the tail is light. Offer both shapes and let him choose.
Write down exactly what the item is
A thing that comes back is worth what you can prove it is. An item nobody wrote down comes back as an argument.
So write the item's own details on both copies before it leaves: the make and model, the colour, the condition, and whatever number is stamped on it. A phone has an IMEI. A motorcycle has an engine and chassis number. A laptop has a serial. Read it out loud while you write it. Ninety seconds, and it settles three arguments before they start: which item it was, what shape it was in, and whether the thing on your counter now is the thing you sold.
Shazia sells laptops beside a college. At around four in the afternoon Tanveer signed a plan, and she wrote the model, the serial number and "small dent on the lid, charger included" on both copies. In the fourth month the plan broke. He brought back a laptop with no charger and a cracked screen and said it left the shop that way. She turned her copy around and showed him his own signature. He paid for the screen. The dealer two doors down writes "one laptop" and nothing else, and loses that argument every year.
Where a guarantor earns his place
You will not always get the plan into a shape where the lines never cross. Sometimes he cannot put more down, and you still want the sale.
That leftover stretch, the months before the crossing, is where a guarantor earns his place. Not on every plan. On this one, for a reason you can say out loud without insulting anybody: the item drops in value faster than the payments come in, so there is a gap at the start, and you want a second name on the paper for it.
Ask at the start or do not ask at all. A guarantor brought in during month five, after trouble has begun, is a man being ambushed, and he behaves like one. Take his name and number in front of the customer, tell him the total, the payment amount and the dates, and what he is standing behind. If you have never set a rule for your own shop, when to ask for a guarantor is a good place to fix one.
Say it out loud, and sometimes say no
Tell the customer the shape of the plan at the counter, with no threat in it: "Waqas, on a phone I keep the first payment bigger and the plan shorter. It is not about you. A steel almirah is worth almost the same after a year and a phone is not, so the plan has to move faster than the phone."
Nobody argues with that. It turns a rule that could sound like suspicion into a plain fact about the goods.
Then the honest part. A bigger first payment and a shorter plan will lose you the customer who genuinely cannot manage either. That is real, and no clever wording gets around it.
You have three answers, and only one is bad. Offer a cheaper model that fits the money he has. Tell him to come back when he has the first payment, kindly, and mean it. Or write the long thin plan anyway, knowing exactly how exposed you are. What you must not do is write it while telling yourself it is fine. Before any large sale, udhaar or qist on a big item is worth a read.
Saying no kindly costs you one sale. Saying yes badly costs you the goods and the customer together.
What your khata should be showing you
The value line is yours to draw, out of your own bazaar and your own sense of what a used thing sells for. The owed line is different: it should never be a subtraction you do at ten at night.
In Wasoolo an installment khata is built from the item price, the down payment and the number of payments, plus the one-time markup you set yourself when the plan is made, and the app lays the schedule out with its dates. Raise an early payment and the ones after it re-divide themselves, so a front-loaded plan takes a minute. A guarantor can be linked to the khata the plan sits on. Every payment is an entry, so what is still owed on any day is a number you read, not one you calculate. Overdue shows as a status badge, and nothing is ever added on top for it. Wasoolo is 100% free to download.
Do not expect an app to price used goods for you. Draw the value line yourself, once, for each kind of item you sell; the khata's job is to keep the other line honest. Get it free and put your next big plan into it.
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Common questions
How do I work out what a used item is worth in my own bazaar?
Ask the people who already buy them. Spend a morning with the second-hand dealer nearest you and write down what he pays for the same model at three, six and twelve months old. Do it once per kind of item and the line is yours for years.
Should I charge a bigger markup on goods that lose value fast?
A markup is a price, set once when the plan is made, and it can reflect the item and the length of the plan. But loading the price is the weakest fix here: it makes the balance bigger, and the balance is the line already sitting too high. A bigger first payment protects you better.
The customer cannot manage a big first payment. Should I refuse the sale?
Not straight away. Try a cheaper model, a shorter plan, or payments that are heavy for three months and light after. If none of that works, a guarantor is the next step. Refusing kindly is the last one, and it beats a plan you know is wrong.
If he stops paying, can I just take the item back?
Only after you have talked, and never as a surprise. Taking back a phone in month two usually leaves you short, as the numbers above show. Sit with him, take what he can pay today, and re-date the rest first.
Does a missed payment mean he owes me more?
No. The total is fixed the day the plan is made and never moves for any reason, lateness included. Overdue is a status that tells you who to call, not a charge. Adding anything on top for a slipped date is how a slow payer becomes a man who avoids your street.
Ten months feels normal to my customers. How do I move them to six?
Do not argue about the months. Show the two prices instead: a shorter plan carries a smaller markup, so the total he pays is lower. Most people move for that reason alone, and it is safer for you too.
Got a plan like this in your khata? Send us a message with the numbers and we will work it through with you.